सिद्धान्तशिरोमणि: गणिताध्याय (भास्कराचार्य - ग्रहगणित, मध्यमाधिकार व स्पष्टाधिकार सटीक)

98 Sūrya Siddhānta (verse 9 ch. 3). He did not give it the interpretation that was later put upon it through the two subsequent lines "तद्दोः त्रिघ्ना" etc., which lines were not there evidently in Bhāskara's time. Without these two latter lines the rate of precession was too small to be accepted by Bhāskara and so he chose to follow Muñjāla rather than the Sūrya Siddhānta. Our Traditional astro- nomers today have no reservation to accept the greatness of Bhāskara and worship him though they do not question what necessity Bhāskara had to write another treatise and that too basing it upon the Āgama accepted by Brahma- gupta and not Sūrya Siddhānta, when there existed Sūrya Siddhānta before him and from which he had no objection to quote verses like "अदृश्वरूपाः कालस्य मूर्तयः" etc. (verse I ch. 2.) The Bīja-correction first incorporated by Brahma- gupta and later followed by a good number of astronomers because Śrīpati and Bhāskara accepted it, will not be accep- table to modern astronomers, though it might have worked well at the time of Brahmagupta and for some years later. The reason is that it is construed only as a tinkering of the defect as explained before. It is also to be noted that the originator of this Bīja- correction did not make it secular i.e. valid for all time increasing without a limit, for, then, the respective corrections transcend all limits and render the corrections meaningless. So, he said that the corrections would be increasing for 6000 years and thereafter begin to decrease to nothing. They were Zero at the beginning of the Kalī because all the yugas are multiples of 12000 years. Also the maximum correction is in the case of Mercury 6000/200 × 52 = 1560' = 26°. Let us see how far this is justifi- able. The daily mean motion of Mercury as given by Bhāskara is 4° - 5' - 32" - 18'" - 28"" whereas as per modern astronomy it is 4° - 5' - 37⅞" approxly. So there is a posi- tive error of 5" ²³⁄₄₀ which will accrue to 18' - 35" in the